


Merry Christmas, Moneypenny

by lovelyophelia



Category: The Hour
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Post 2x6, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyophelia/pseuds/lovelyophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas fluff. Freddie and Bel go for a moonlit stroll in Kensington Gardens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merry Christmas, Moneypenny

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays to everyone!

_December, 1957_

 

_God rest ye, merry gentlemen_

_Let nothing you dismay..._

 

Bel’s flat is cold. The wireless crackles, the electric fire hums. Paper chains whisper against the cracked glass of the window.

Alone and frustrated, Freddie paces.

‘Just a couple of hours,’ she’d said, pulling on her coat, ‘Don’t you dare move.’

Bel hasn’t done a lot of leaving in the last few weeks.

Whenever she does, Freddie finds himself hating her quiet little flat. He misses her presence, the thousand little noises and words and half-broken smiles that make up daily life. Deprived of her presence, the flat seems pathetic, insipid, so much more worn and dull – lonely, even.

Traces of her linger, though, and he takes comfort from them like patches of sunlight on a cloudy day. Some ineffable _Bel-_ ness lingers in the cracks between walls – a waft of her perfume trapped in the cushions, a necklace left carelessly on a table, her spectacles, still open, on the paper.

 _She’ll be back soon_.

He looks at his watch. A twinge in his wrist reminds him to be more careful – two fingers are still in splints, though the broken wrist is healing nicely.

With a sigh, he throws himself down on the settee. He fidgets, then brings out a bent paperback. His bad eye waters when he reads too much, but this one he almost knows off by heart.  A well-worn photograph falls out of it. He catches it between two clumsy fingers – they shake a little – but the smile that lights up his face is broad and carefree.

Still holding the photograph, Freddie’s eyes drift close.

It’s not long until there’s a clack-clack of heels outside the door and Freddie jerks awake. As always, he senses her presence long before she appears – the headlong, breathless atmosphere of _Bel._ She arrives pink-cheeked and red-lipped from the cold, bright-eyed and anxious from the separation. Fat droplets of water spin and dance and leave trails on her coat. When she sees him, she smiles – a classic Bel smile, which he in his head calls her Moneypenny smile – a smile both complicated and powerful and potent.

‘It’s just started to snow,’ she says.

Freddie can’t help it. He leaps up from the settee, crosses the distance between them in a couple of short bounds, and kisses her. It’s a true and deep and good kiss that travels all the way down and warms her from the inside out. His warm arms wrap around her, cold and smoky from the London streets.

They don’t talk about how much they miss each other. How every separation is a trial. They know, now, to make the most of every minute together.

Later, when they’re lying warm and breathless in a tangle on Bel’s settee – they never make it as far as the bedroom – Freddie remembers about the snow.

‘Snow?’ he says, ‘In London? Is it radioactive?’

He makes her laugh.

‘You’re worse than Randall,’ she says, ‘It is entirely possible that, for once, something good could happen. God knows we’ve earned it.’

He looks at her, all open-mouthed and pink-cheeked in the glow of the electric heater.

‘Something good _has_ happened.’

The smile she gives him, then, is broad and deep and utterly – for once – without care. He kisses her again, tenderly - then, with the sudden changes of mood she loves, leaps to his feet.

‘Come on, get dressed. We’re going out.’

She stares at him, an unwilling smile plucking at the corner of her lip. ‘Oh, we are?’

Trailing a blanket, he disappears into the other room.  He reappears with a scarf and couple of fuzzy, woollen mittens, which he throws at her.

‘Snow!’ he says, ‘In London! We’re not missing that, Moneypenny, not for the world.’

She bites her lip to hide her smile from him, her beautiful boy, who was so brave and fought so hard, and still sees the beauty in the world.

When they leave the flat, it’s hand in hand. People hurry along, heads bowed, eager to get back to their homes and families and lights and warmth – Bel and Freddie wander, aimless but happy. Freddie thinks Bel looks luminous in the moonlight, and says so. She pulls him into a doorway and kisses him properly; then they set off again, talking, laughing. Freddie still limps a little, but he alone moves carefree through the crowd, and Bel follows him. Light flecks of snow caress their faces, but they feel no cold.

Eventually, they end up at Kensington. The traffic is slowing, the people are returning to their houses; London is theirs, and magical. The Gardens beckon before them, all green boughs and white snow, ghostly in the midnight. Freddie rattles the iron-link fence.

‘Locked,’ says Bel. ‘I don’t know if  –‘

‘Circumstantial, Moneypenny,’ he says, with a wicked grin. Before she can stop him, he’s hoisted himself up and disappeared over the top.

‘Freddie! Your leg – ‘

‘Actually, the name’s Bond,’ comes a muffled voice. Freddie appears, smug and self-satisfied. With a flourish, he unlocks the gate for her.

Bel smiles, caught – as she is so often - between exasperation and adoration. She steps through and takes his hand.

‘I could have done it, you know,’ she says.

‘Done what?’

‘Climbed the gate. I wouldn’t have minded.’

‘I never doubted you for a second,’ he says.

Together, they wander through the park, a wonderland of green and white. When Freddie throws the first ball of loose, soft snow, she determines to resolutely, emphatically, resist him.

‘I am a producer for the BBC, Freddie Lyon, and I will not – ‘

A snowball whistles past.

‘Oh – damn it all to hell!’

And Bel Rowley, twenty-nine year old career woman, producer for the BBC, drops to her knees and shovels snowballs with the best of them.

When at last they grown tired of running and playing and laughing, they hold each other close and kiss till their lips are sore.

Somewhere, over London, a clock chimes 12.

‘Merry Christmas, Moneypenny,’ whispers Freddie.

‘Merry Christmas, James,’ Bel replies. 

 

_...tidings of comfort and joy_

_Oh, tidings of comfort and joy_


End file.
